This invention relates to carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and more specifically to methods for forming carbon nanotube (CNT) materials and/or structures, and also the CNT materials and/or structures thereby formed.
CNTs have been proposed for a number of potential applications, including but not limited to electronic circuit applications such as field effect transistors, capacitors and/or ultra-capacitors, memory arrays, traces, and switches. Numerous other applications have been proposed as well, such as structural materials, heaters and heat transfer conduits, and numerous others. Techniques for fabricating materials, components, and other structures from carbon nanotubes have often involved either coating a thin layer of previously-formed carbon nanotubes onto a substrate (e.g., by spin-coating a dispersion of carbon nanotubes in a solvent onto a substrate) or by growing CNTs onto a substrate (e.g., by chemical vapor deposition onto a catalyzed substrate). These techniques, however, result in nanoscopically thin layers of carbon nanotubes that are essentially two-dimensional. Attempts to use these techniques to form three-dimensional carbon nanotube structures or components have generally involved formation of multiple stacked layers of carbon nanotubes using these techniques. However, the formation of multiple thin carbon nanotube layers can be quite time consuming and expensive.
Accordingly, additional techniques for the formation of carbon nanotube materials, structures, and/or components are still desired.